Class 




Book. 

Gopight^J". 



£M 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

AND OTHER PAPERS 




V ^ti/v-rt/V-^C K. , b \A^auuU 



A NEW 
COURSE OF STUDY 

AND OTHER PAPERS 



BY 



EDWARD R. SHAW, Ph.D, 

LATE DEAN OP THE SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY 
NEW TOBK UNIVERSITY 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1904 



IBlOZS 



LVB^ARYnf CONGRESS 




TWO OoDles Received 




AUG 17 1904 




Cooyrtght Enhy 

CLAS!^ ^ XXe.N«. 

Q i^ If S ^ 
0©PY B 





Copyright, 1904, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



TO 

Dr. SHAWS students 

in grateful appreciation of their 

loyalty and devotion, this 

book is dedicated 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 



At the urgent request of friends and students of 
the late Dr. Edward R. Shaw this Httle volume has 
been published. 

No attempt has been made to present Dr. Shaw's 
lectures as a whole. In selecting from the material 
at hand it seemed necessary and best to follow his 
own judgment and use for the most part what had 
already been published at different times under his 
personal supervision. 



CONTENTS 



FAGB 

Biographical Sketch xi 

A New Course of Study 1 

The Value of the Motor Activities in Edu- 
cation 24 

The Spelling Question 42 

The Logic of Children 63 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Dr. Edward Richard Shaw^ the author 
of the chapters in this httle volume, was born 
at Bellport, Suffolk County, N. Y., Janu- 
ary 13, 1850. At this time the original 
farming and fishing population of Long 
Island was still unspoiled by city residents 
and summer visitors. This simple homely 
life, dealing directly with the realities of sea 
and land, influenced powerfully the chil- 
dren who grew up in it. Those who knew 
Dr. Shaw best often recognized under the 
eager, restless life of the city student and 
teacher of pedagogy echoes of the early 
Long Island days. 

Why he began to teach he never knew. 
Most American boys drift or fall into their 
life's work, but in Dr. Shaw's case the acci- 
dent was fortunate. Teaching and study- 
ing by turns, he worked his way through 

xi 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Lafayette College, and in 1881 he took his 
degree of Ph. B. He was a student by na^ 
tm^e, and the student's life is contagious. 
Alert, energetic, ambitious, he gave to the 
boys and girls in his Long Island schools 
the spirit of inquiry and the enthusiasm for 
humanity which have carried some of them 
out into large fields of usefulness. 

Dr. Shaw was married in 1876 to Miss 
Huldah Green. To his energy and single- 
hearted devotion to educational studies she 
added the calmness and the larger interest 
in life that almost every man who has 
accomplished much in the world has found 
in some woman. One son was born to them, 
but in the prime of the most promising 
young manhood he was carried away after 
a few days' illness of pneumonia. This was 
the most terrible affliction that ever came 
into their lives. 

From 1883 to 1892, Dr. Shaw had made 
a reputation as one of the able high school 
principals of the country, through his work 
at Yonkers. But during all this prelim- 
inary period of teaching and school manage- 
ment the young teacher's interest extended 
far beyond his school buildings and the sub- 

xii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

jects he was teaching. He was a leading 
figure in teachers' organizations; he wrote 
extensively for school journals; and he trav- 
eled widely, visiting normal schools and edu- 
cational experiments of all kinds. It was 
in connection with one of these educational 
expeditions that I first met Dr. Shaw, and 
his eager interest, his quick detection of pre- 
tense and sham, his devotion to the science 
and art of teaching, and his belief in its 
future, made a deep impression on my mind. 

He was at this time thoroughly convinced 
of the inadequacy of the normal schools to 
furnish the pedagogical leadership needed 
by the country; the idea of university 
courses for teachers was gradually coming 
into prominence, and he gave it his hearty 
support. In 188T, partly through Dr. 
Shaw's personal efforts and advice, the New 
York University established a Professor- 
ship for Pedagogy in the Graduate School. 
Dr. Shaw registered for the lectures of Dr. 
Allen; he had already been given the mas- 
ter's degree by his alma mater, and in 
1889-'90 he was given the doctor's degree in 
the newly established department. 

The following autumn, October 1, 1890, 

xiii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

the original professorship of pedagogy was 
expanded into the School of Pedagogy, and 
Dr. Shaw became Lecturer on Educational 
Classics. For two years he held this lecture- 
ship while retaining his position in the high 
school at Yonkers, but in 1892 he was given 
the professorship of methodology and de- 
voted all his time to the School of Pedagogy. 
In 1893 the title of his chair was enlarged to 
Institute of Education and in 1894 he be- 
came Dean of the School of Pedagogy, and 
retained the position until 1901. 

During these twelve years of his connec- 
tion with New York University, Dr. Shaw 
helped to build up the School of Pedagogy 
from nothing to a position of prominence 
and leadership in the country. The diffi- 
culties of the position can hardly be overesti- 
mated. There M^ere no traditional lines 
along which such work could be developed; 
funds for expansion were lacking and had 
to be foLmd from year to year; the students 
were mainly teachers giving their best ener- 
gies to schools in New York and the vicin- 
ity; the standard of scholarship was low 
when the school was opened, and had to be 
rapidly raised. But through all discourage- 

xiv 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

merits Dr. Shaw's untiring energy, courage, 
and tact steadily won the way. 

In this higher position, as in his earher 
work, Dr. Shaw never became a mere ad- 
ministrator. He made repeated journeys to 
Europe and to all parts of America in 
search of new ideas. Realizing that "to con- 
duct a school of pedagogy without a school 
of children is as absurd as to conduct a 
school of medicine without a hospital," he 
organized and directed the Heusinger 
School as a model and experimental school. 
With an excellent corps of teachers and a 
good plant he here brought to the test of 
practical application many of the theories 
which he presented before his students. 

In the midst of all these varied activities 
Dr. Shaw still found time for writing. He 
had previously written English Composition 
by Practise, Physics by Experiment and a 
purely literary work. Legends of Fire Isl- 
and. To these he now added Three Studies 
in Education, a translation of Ostermann's, 
Interest in its Relation to Education, and a 
half-dozen abridgments of standard works 
for supplementary reading in the grades. 
Besides these he contributed more than a 

XV 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

dozen important articles to educational jour- 
nals. Any one who examines Dr. Shaw's 
written work as a whole must feel how 
greatly it improved in his later years. The 
School Hygiene, published in 1901, is now 
the standard work in a difficult field where 
much had already been written. 

In 1901 Dr. Shaw gave up the deanship 
of the School of Pedagogy and confined 
himself to his work in the Institute of Edu- 
cation. The remarkable unanimity with 
which Dr. Shaw's former students combined 
in expressions of regret over his withdrawal 
from the deanship of the school, shows how 
deeply his personal qualities and his work 
had impressed themselves upon the army of 
teachers which had passed into his hands. 

In November of 1902 Dr. Shaw was 
called to the superintendence of the schools 
of Rochester, N. Y. The position would 
have brought him into active contact with 
practical school affairs in a progressive cen- 
ter, where he could have developed plans 
which he had long desired to see carried into 
effect. In the midst of his preparations for 
the new work he was, however, stricken 
down and died February 11, 1903. 

xvi 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

It is idle to estimate the permanent value 
of any man's work while we are in the midst 
of it; but the man's personal qualities and 
his immediate influence can be better known 
and expressed by his contemporaries than 
by those who come later. 

As a man, Dr. Shaw endeared himself to 
many people. His genial personality, his 
boundless energy, his devotion to his work, 
and the freedom with which he gave himself 
to help any struggling student, endeared 
him to all who worked in his classes. One 
of the ablest primary supervisors in the 
country in explaining her success to a friend 
recently said, "It was Dr. Shaw's friendship 
that gave me my start, and kept me going." 
There are many teachers in the country who 
could say the same. 

As a teacher, he had undoubted genius. 
He loved to teach and his students caught 
his spirit. His varied experience, covering 
the whole field of American education, his 
broad reading, and his long work in teach- 
ing pedagogical principles gave him ac- 
quaintance with all that was best in educa- 
tional practise. To this knowledge of teach- 
ing he added indefatigable industry, critical 
2 xvii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

judgment, and common sense. He was 
certainly one of the best teachers of his 
generation. 

As an educator, in the broader sense of the 
word, his reputation will stand or fall with 
that of the group of men with whom he was 
identified in his professional career. Possi- 
bly the most marked characteristic of his 
generation of schoolmen has been a tend- 
ency to base educational practise on physi- 
ological laws; looking upon life from the 
evolutionary point of view it has sought to 
determine methods from a study of growth ; 
and it has had a profound faith in education 
as the greatest developing and conserving 
power of the modern world. 

Dr. Shaw was thoroughly in sjmipathy 
with all these tendencies. That he sought 
physiological foundations for his theories 
and beliefs is seen in the fact that his best 
work gathered around the study of motor 
ability and school hygiene. 

He was keenly aware of the tendency to 
base method on genetic studies, and he was 
strongly identified with the child-study 
movement. He loved children, and yet his 
work was animated not so much by a pas- 

xviii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

sionate love of children as by a desire for 
educational efficiency. Education was to 
him an institution exercising functions 
which needed to be related and perfected; 
and still he always reahzed that the institu- 
tion with all of its functions must be pri- 
marily conditioned by the nature of the 
children with which it deals. His attitude 
was not that of Fenelon or Pestalozzi, but 
rather that of Locke. 

Of the importance of education in our 
modern life he had no doubts. Devotion to 
teaching was to him almost a religion. Who- 
ever teaches well profoundly influences some 
lives. A man who trains teachers well exerts 
an influence upon humanity which can not 
be overestimated. Among Americans of 
this generation who have given their lives to 
this highest form of influencing belief and 
conduct, the name of Edward Richard Shaw 
will always have an honored place. 



C'OlaA. J^, 



CULtAX^ 



XIX 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 



The accompanying outline shows in 
analytical form the result of an attempt to 
arrange the underlying requirements of an 
enriched course of study for elementary 
schools in accordance with the principles of 
correlation, coordination, and interrelation. 

The meaning here taken for correlation is 
the principal meaning assigned the term by 
the subcommittee on correlation of the 
Committee of Fifteen in its report to the 
National Educational Association, in 1895. 
Accordingly, the various significations in 
which the term correlation was used in the 
active, prolonged, and somewhat confused 
discussion which preceded the report, some 
of which, it is to be regretted, persist at the 
present time, are abandoned. Previous to 

S 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

the report several plans of coordination were 
put forth, while the report also essentially 
embodied a plan of coordination. 

In the various plans of coordination ad- 
verted tOjDr.Hailman proposed seven groups 
of studies ; Dr. Harris, five groups ; Dr. 
Prince, four groups ; Dr. DeGarmo, three 
groups ; while some plans of concentration 
were in one aspect tantamount to two groups. 

In studying these plans with the object in 
view of arranging a working course of study 
which should secure to the fullest extent 
possible, the ends and benefits to be gained 
by correlation, coordination, interrelation, 
and even some phases of concentration, the 
writer found himself best able to realize 
these ends by adopting as a basis the plan 
of coordination set forth by DeGarmo in his 
article on the "Coordination of Studies," 
Educational Review ^ May, 1893. 

A long time has passed since DeGarmo's 
article appeared, but time has been neces- 
sary for careful selection, preliminary test, 
adaptation, and repeated trial. The present 

4 



ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF A COURSE OK STUDY FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 
FIRST VF.AK piRST Y'EAR 

SCIEXT'HC PXONOMIC ud CIVIC 

Slurfjo/.Vil'"""' •'*"'»<«'***' (V, , , , Study of Nrighborlued. ""^ 

Und. •»!«. ttj. \i,mli"r'' on r r" ' '" — ' ^"^- f't^"*. "bHter. Writing at 

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HHST 


YEAR 


HUMA 


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SECONT) 


VEAU 


SECOND YEAR 


SCIBK 


rii-K- 


ECONOMIC Odd CIVIC 


.ShJi, ol Naturd Sijm»wi*np«. 

S«iw.ii.. wcBther (doud^ 

wind.). 
Anininl*. plaiiU. minmdi. 
Space and quimlily tdalioni. 

I'by/iml fon-ct oiid phmom- 


''9''iJ."Sx^''d„u:;: 


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f^xily ciirupMirndnJ sgcncin ^' ' 

Civil- m|uirciiieulj. . ..( .1 





THIKU VEAU 




HUMANISTIC 


D«lb*o 


•i IMatiim*. fitailing. 


Fairy Ulc*.r 


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THIRD V-EAR 
SCIENTIFIC 
Sludi/DtNiiltiralSiannJitUn^. Fonnin; and n-ril 



."i™i''""i "."'Zr Snd "J; iCSJ', 



THIKl 


YEAR 


ECONOMI 


C nnd CIVIC 


Efonemte Study of Loaalil\i. 


Writing. 


TnidB «nd occupktioai. 

O urging producti. Incom- 
ing pnxJucti. 


fe 



FOURTH YEAR 
HUMANMSriC 



FOURTH YEAH 
SCIENTIFIC 



FOURTH YEAR 
ECONOMIC and CIVIC 



DeKtiption of pooplra 



FIFFH YEAR 

HUMANISTIC 

Ihitttt and fUlatioiu. 



Sjwct; and qunnlj 

H°™.abodr. 
Phyiical forces 




|-ri.iioi»- SM^ .too.. p^„ 
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FIKril YEAR 




SCIKNTIFIC 



Skctcliing in pencil ol poMa, 



FIFTH ■i'EAR 
ECONOMIC and CIVIC 




A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

outline is a revision of one privately printed 
in 1899. It includes such educative ma- 
terial as may well be given in progressive 
elementary schools. 

As has already been indicated, correlation 
is here regarded as such a selection of edu- 
cative material as will induce in the child, 
so far as his capacities permit, that kind and 
degree of knowledge with its concomitant 
applications and uses requisite to fit him for 
his environment. Coordination is regarded 
as the division of the material into groups 
of studies having a similar educative trend, 
the distribution affording opportunity for 
closer interrelation. Interrelation is regarded 
as the bringing together in teaching of those 
parts of different subjects between which 
there exist such relations as admit of the in- 
terconnecting of the parts into a unitary 
whole; or, in some instances, as the linking 
of certain parts of two or more subjects in 
which there is a dependence of one series of 
ideas upon another, the interconnection of 
which strengthens associations in the learn- 

5 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

er's mind, enhances interest, and develops 
the power to detect closer relations between 
the ideas brought together — a power which 
is not necessarily developed when such series 
of ideas are presented in isolation. 

Important interrelations can be effected 
between history and certain phases of geog- 
raphy, as there is an interdependent content 
through place and the relation of causality; 
between mathematical geography, parts of 
arithmetic and geometry, through spatial, 
quantitative, and form relations; between 
other parts of arithmetic, concrete geome- 
try, manual construction, and color ; between 
literature, home, school, and social relations, 
and civic requirements and obligations; be- 
tween certain phases of geography and 
experiments illustrating the laws of physical 
and chemical forces and phenomena; be- 
tween geographical features and conditions 
and hterature, as books of travel and de- 
scription ; between grammatical analysis and 
composition; etc. 

As has been previously stated, DeGarmo's 

6 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

plan of coordination was adopted as a work- 
ing basis for the reason that it afforded, in 
the judgment of the writer, opportunities 
for a greater number of interrelations. An- 
other reason was that existing courses 
of studies in elementary schools could be 
adapted, with no great modification, to this 
plan and cause the least disturbance to pres- 
ent direction of the program and time allot- 
ment of studies. Some, however, of the pro- 
posed plans of coordination, while logically 
and theoretically defensible, presented insu- 
perable difficulties in interrelation, and upon 
analysis of the possibilities they afforded in 
this direction, there seemed to be inherently 
in them a certain rigidity of isolation be- 
tween the groups. 

DeG-armo's three groups are the Hu- 
manistic, the Scientific, and the Economic. 
These seem happily chosen, as they repre- 
sent the three fundamental divisions of 
knowledge and thought activity. 

The Humanistic core or group possesses 
"a distinct ethical content in literature and 

7 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

historical development arising from hmnan 
progress through different stages of civiH- 
zation." Accepting this statement m gen- 
eral, but not as to some of its possible impli- 
cations as interpreted by the Herbatian 
school, the writer makes literature and his- 
tory the principal part of the humanistic 
core in the outline presented. These sub- 
jects are selected with reference to the pu- 
pil's capacity at each stage to interpret them. 
His attention is especially directed to the 
imaginative and real situations which the 
material furnishes, in order to evoke his 
judgment and so cultivate it that it will 
guide him aright with reference to home, 
school, and social relations and duties. Em- 
phasis, then, is put upon duties, home and 
social relations in order to implant ideas and 
arouse right f eehng with reference to these. 
The pupil, therefore, after he leaves school, 
because of the very tendency of his ideas and 
feelings, will be led to apply to life in all 
its varied connections his conception of what 
is best and right. 

a 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

It will be noticed that there also appears 
in the humanistic core a description of alien 
peoples in their social environment and insti- 
tutions. When the pupil's attention is thus 
directed it has been observed that, through 
the contrast arising by virtue of the neces- 
sary and constant comparison with home 
surroundings, a special interest arises and 
with it clearer and more distinct concep- 
tions of home environment, home institu- 
tions, and their significance. 

Lastly, there is included in this core, songs 
and hymns and pictures, which not only re- 
enforce the ethical notions drawn from the 
literature and history but also supplement 
them, and evoke different feelings and emo- 
tions, heightening noble aspiration, inciting 
to good will, and quickening the spiritual 
nature. 

With Uterature, moreover, songs and 
hymns, and pictures may be so combined 
as to lead to a contemplation of certain 
phases of art apart from the ethical content 
inherent in the material. In other words, 

9 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

attention may be directed solely upon the 
esthetic to develop artistic judgments, fur- 
nish acceptable standards of taste and refine 
certain forms of emotion. 

The Scientific group provides for an ac- 
quaintance with certain facts of unques- 
tioned utility, the development of habits of 
observation, comparison, and discrimination, 
and the creation of an attitude of mind on 
the part of the pupil receptive to the conclu- 
sions of science, and appreciative of the 
necessity and value of the discovery of new 
facts and the reconstruction of held conclu- 
sions in the light of newly discovered facts. 
It will be admitted that in achieving the 
above results, there are developed in the 
mind of the pupil, processes of thought, 
powers of inference, insight into certain 
kinds of relations which are distinctly differ- 
ent from the mental activities that result 
from the pursuit of the subjects of the hu- 
manistic group. 

Space to speak of the treatment of each 
subject of the group is not at command. 

10 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

Some explanation, however, should appear 
of the treatment of arithmetic. In the out- 
line a minimum requirement in this subject 
is indicated and the first steps proceed 
leisurely. The sequence of topics, it will be 
noticed, is substantially the order which is 
to-day unquestionably most widely fol- 
lowed. This is preferred to that succession 
of topics and treatment of the subject em- 
ployed at present in a few schools — a treat- 
ment which, at the earliest stage possible, 
seeks to establish several different processes 
of thought, as, for instance, those belonging 
to common fractions, to decimal fractions, 
to percentage, to ratio, to proportion, etc., 
carrying these processes along abreast, so 
to speak. In other words, the pupil solves 
a few simple problems under the first topic, 
and then under the next, and so on through 
the last topic, when he passes through the 
cycle again, the examples offered him for 
solution increasing in difficulty at each re- 
turn. Such a practise does not commend 
itself as a means of securing mental econ- 

11 



I 



c " 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

omy. With an enriched course of study, it 
will be conceded that mental economy is a 
most important consideration, one which 
must be constantly held in mind. In the out- 
line the sequence of topics in arithmetic is 
a sequence which is most economical of men- 
tal energy. The processes of fractions 
evolve naturally into processes in decimals. 
The transition is easy, for the general rela- 
tions are the same in decimals as in common 
fractions, the processes of handling the rela- 
tions by the mind are the same, attention, 
however, being directed to one particular 
aspect of the relations and different forms 
of expression substituted. The same rea- 
sons will apply in proceeding from decimals 
to percentage, etc. 

In the outline arithmetic is interrelated 
with concrete geometry and there is a grad- 
ual progression into algebra. There are also 
many interrelations with topics of the Eco- 
nomic and Civic group. It should be stated 
that there is little interrelation of arithmetic 
with nature study. An application of arith- 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

metic in this field has been strongly urged 
by some educators, but such recommenda- 
tion, it is to be said, is based upon a mis- 
conception of the educational value of 
arithmetic. 

In the third group, the Economic and 
Civic, something more than DeGarmo indi- 
cated in his plan is provided for. His third 
group was the Economic, and its underly- 
ing idea is "man and nature in interaction." 
By means of the studies of the group he 
seeks to prepare the pupil through industrial 
training the better to master and direct the 
forces of nature, at the same time providing 
"a literary or imaginative contemplation of 
the economic field.'* It must not, however, 
be overlooked that the studies of the scien- 
tific group contribute an important part in 
equipping the pupil for the direction and 
mastery of the forces of nature, and it is 
through interrelations with the scientific 
group that this end is the more fully 
achieved. 

But the underlying idea of DeGarmo's 
3 13 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

third group is adopted. It has been found 
advantageous, however, to enlarge his sug- 
gestion of the economic group to include the 
civic. The approach to civics in the lower 
grades comes about easily and naturally by 
way of the economic, as certain aspects of 
government are very closely connected with 
the trades and occupations and with indus- 
trial and commercial operation. By reason 
of this concrete connection these aspects are 
easily made objects of attention. Accord- 
ingly, at the beginning of the course the pu- 
pil's attention is directed to the easily com- 
prehended agencies of government, and later, 
in addition to these, to those means of gov- 
ernment with the pupil's observation and 
understanding, then progressing gradually 
from these so as to include civic requirements. 
An understanding of civic requirements 
forms an excellent groimdwork for an ap- 
preciation of civic obligations. By careful 
selection, the topics relating to civics become 
differentiated from their connection with 
the trades, occupations, industries, and com- 

14 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

merce and appear in the eighth year as civics 
proper. This approach to the subject is felt 
to be fully justified, as in the manner indi- 
cated a deeper interest is incited, and a 
broader appreciation for the subject in its 
more abstract presentation established, be- 
cause of the numerous concrete instances 
which the approach supplies as an interpre- 
tative groundwork. 

In the lengthy discussion on correlation 
and coordination to which reference has pre- 
viously been made, the divisions content and 
formal side were used to denote certain as- 
pects in which the course of study was to be 
viewed. Most of the plans of coordinated 
courses of study put forth at that time rec- 
ognized these divisions for each core or 
group, and DeGarmo in his fruitful article 
maintains the distinction. In the outline 
presented, the terms content and formal side 
have not been employed, but two divisions 
have been made, which, while they implj'^ cer- 
tain things meant by the terms content and 
formal side, yet include in their meaning 

15 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

something which these terms do not mean. 
They indicate, moreover, certain phases of 
advance in methods of teaching — an advance 
which may at the present time be rather 
widely noted in progressive schools. The 
divisions adopted are material^ and expres- 
sive and constructive activities. 

Through the employment of the activities, 
certain processes of thought are developed, 
and knowledge results, knowledge which is 
truly mastered and carries with it skill to do 
and to apply. 

The introduction and advocacy of activ- 
ities, let it be said on the one hand, is not to 
be construed as favoring the deferment of 
the learning of the formal and symbolic as- 
pects of studies to a period when it is sup- 
posed the child will see the necessity and 
value of these aspects, and by virtue of this 
attitude of mind and from inner impulsion 
set out and rapidly acquire the formal and 
the symbolic. It must not be overlooked 
that the acquirement of the formal and sym- 
bolic aspects of studies develops for each 

16 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

study its own apperceptive procedure. The 
race has been centuries systematizing edu- 
cational processes, and the school is able to 
give the child the past experience of the race 
and to fit him to aid in social progress, be- 
cause it induces in him the apperceptive sys- 
tems which are the outgrowth of long pe- 
riods of trial and selection. The acquire- 
ment, therefore, of the formal and symbolic 
aspects of studies can not be safely deferred, 
but should begin as soon as the child enters 
school. 

On the other hand activities are intro- 
duced for the purpose of leading the child 
the easier and the more fully into the differ- 
ent apperceptive systems with their inherent 
economic apperceptive procedure, and in ad- 
dition to give the child greater skill and 
power to apply his knowledge and to per- 
ceive relations. The activities, moreover, 
afford a larger appeal to the self -activity of 
the pupil. They are a means of evoking 
more fully all his powers, of centering his 
attention, of awakening interest, and of en- 

n 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

abling him the more readily to acquire the 
formal and symbolic aspects of studies. 
They are not for the purpose of establish- 
ing a procedure of their own, but that a 
larger experience may be given subservient 
of the logical sequence and apperceptive 
procedure which the studies require. 

But activities must not be carried to such 
extremes, made so numerous and extended, 
by bringing in factor upon factor of new 
conditions, that the child is rendered desul- 
tory in his thinking and his interests, and 
falls into such a mental attitude that his at- 
tention can be fully secured only by the nov- 
elty of change of situations. The develop- 
ment thus resulting is one too largely on the 
plane of sense-perception. The sequence of 
impressions in his mind is of a haphazard 
character. Sense elements have been fur- 
nished in overabundance, and relational ele- 
ments and their sequence have been neg- 
lected. Nor should we be deceived into 
thinking that the pupil will acquire the nec- 
essary formal and symbolic systems if the 

18 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

teacher merely brings these in incidentally 
in a great range of activities. 

That experiment has been tried over and 
over again outside the schoolroom, so that 
there is little warrant for repeating it in the 
schoolroom. One meets on every hand men 
and women of good native ability, who have 
achieved success in life as success is gener- 
ally measured. They began their careers 
very early, when several years of elementary 
school life had yet to be completed ; in other 
words, they left school early and went out 
into the world. From an early age they 
have been constantly engaged in activities, 
constantly in contact with some concrete 
phase of vocational life. And yet they 
freely confess their limitations and deeply 
regret that they did not acquire those indis- 
pensable formal systems. Contact with ac- 
tive life, engagement in manifold activities, 
will give executive ability, a certain kind of 
organizing power, will develop that side of 
mental life and its apperceptive procedure, 
but as observation at every turn reveals, will 

19 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

not secure in proper degree those formal sys- 
tems which require to be built up most care- 
fully and patiently. The school, therefore, 
can not trust to the acquirement of these in- 
cidentally. It must address no small frac- 
tion of its energies to their acquirement, but 
not, however, in the old narrow way. 

The point we are contending for is simply 
the right use of activities. The child must 
be led to work toward definiteness, exact- 
ness, concentration, and not be led into 
scatteredness of mental effort, a random 
expenditure of mental energy. He must be 
guided from the day he enters school into 
habits which lead to order, sequence, pro- 
gressive relation of ideas. Activities prop- 
erly subordinated through the sequence in 
each and the sequence of all to those apper- 
ceptive systems which have been slowly 
evolved, are a means of incalculable worth 
in securing the important ends already cited. 

In determining the interrelations possible 
in this plan of coordination, trends of inter- 
relations revealed themselves which point 

20 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

quite clearly to the combination of several 
groups of interrelations into certain unified 
composites. The very conditions of lack of 
time to teach all that is required by the en- 
riched curriculum, and the demand of the 
age for a larger equipment of knowledge 
on the part of each individual unit of society, 
involving as this does not only more highly 
developed processes of thought, but also a 
greater diversity of acquired mental and 
manual activities, indicate the need of some 
condensation and unification of topics of the 
course of study. 

The formation of new unities seems, then, 
a logical outcome of the thought and dis- 
cussion on correlation and coordination. For 
some time it has been apparent to the writer 
that the formation of four such unities is 
not only possible but feasible. Each of the 
unities would constitute in itself an apper- 
ceptive system, but a system more complex 
than that of the individual parts fused, as 
more factors would be involved and a 
greater number of relations included. 

21 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

It is not to be assumed that all the edu- 
cative material of the course of study could 
be comprised in the four unities suggested. 
Much of it, however, could be so embodied. 
In teaching the knowledge thus combined, 
a surprising gain in time and effort ex- 
pended would be found to result not only on 
the part of the teachers in presentation, but 
to a greater extent on the part of the pupil 
in acquiring. Besides the gain in time and 
effort, the pupil's range of mental activity, 
and his power to apply in new fields the 
ideas constituting the new composite, would 
be largely increased, since by the method of 
acquirement, he would not only be made 
aware of the relations established to produce 
the unity, but at the same time be constantly 
led to discover new possibilities of relations 
among the elements, whereas when the 
same parts or ideas are presented separately 
or in isolation, the pupil, because of the nar- 
row method of presentation, is not made 
aware of the relations, nor is mental activity 
in recognizing or discovering these called 
forth. 22 



A NEW COURSE OF STUDY 

In conclusion, it may be said that with 
much of the material of the course of study 
fused into four unities, departmental teach- 
ing in the upper grades would become an 
easier and simpler problem than it will ever 
be possible to make it with conditions such 
as they are at the present time. 



£3 



THE VALUE OF THE MOTOR 
ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 



THE VALUE OF THE MOTOR 
ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 



The physical activity of children is a fact 
attested by common observation. The value 
of physical activity in the education of chil- 
dren must have been recognized by Comeni- 
us, as this recognition seems to be implied in 
his maxim, "Learn to do by doing," for it is 
only upon the knowledge gained through 
recent investigations and researches that we 
are able to comprehend the import of the 
Comenian maxim. "Learn to do by doing" 
has been controverted from the time of its 
enunciation by Comenius down almost to 
the present day. It has been discussed pro 
and con, and Httle new light came out of the 
discussion. The disagreement grew out of 
the fact that there was not scientific knowl- 

^7 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

edge enough to interpret the maxim, and 
so it became the basis of a long controversy. 
Many educators all the while believed in the 
maxim ; others repudiated it. But to-day we 
have sufficient knowledge to interpret and 
understand this maxim, and to remove it 
from the grounds where controversy has so 
long found it necessary to detain it. Its 
import, I trust, will become, in part, appar- 
ent to the reader from what I shall try to 
state concerning the demands of the motor 
activities in teaching. I shall be able to put 
before the reader more clearly these de- 
mands, and how the motor activities aid in 
mental development, if I ask him to recall 
the mental impressions he has received when 
his observation has centered upon a child in 
the few weeks following its birth. 

IMPULSIVE MOVEMENTS 

All persons have noticed the physical 
movements of a very young child. These 
movements are principally of two kinds, and 

28 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

they are to be distinguished from each other 
by the way in which they are initiated. The 
first class includes those movements which 
arise from some cause solely within the or- 
ganism. The contractive movements made 
with the arms, the kicking movements made 
with the legs, the twistings and contortions 
of the body, are for the most part movements 
of this kind, and are initiated by the dis- 
charge of nervous force from the lower cen- 
ters of the brain. These movements are not 
directed by the child, but take place because 
the cells in the centers from which the im- 
pulses start become filled with cell material 
gathered, of course, by reason of the nutri- 
tive and assimilative processes. When these 
cells are filled they undergo some change, 
because they have reached the point of ful- 
ness. It is by virtue of this change that im- 
pulses to muscular action are sent out along 
the nerves connected with the muscular sys- 
tem. In all this, we have the building up of 
the cell, and then its breaking down, or, to 
speak in other words, the using up of the 
^ 29 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

cell material according to some rhythmic 
and mysterious law of nature. Every dis- 
charge from these impulse centers sets into 
activity some set of muscles, and as soon as 
the muscles act, a stimulus is returned to the 
brain. In this manner a large part of the 
nervous mechanism of the child, which at 
this period is relatively simple in its struc- 
ture, as compared with the nervous mecha- 
nism of the fully developed adult, is brought 
into action, or made to function in a normal 
manner. 

REFLEX MOVEMENTS 

The second class of movements consti- 
tutes those which arise from some cause pri- 
marily outside the organism; that is, from 
external stimulus. For instance, when a 
bright light is brought into the room where 
a young infant is lying, his head is turned 
toward the light because of the stimulus fall- 
ing upon the nerves of the retina. There 
are, moreover, movements resulting from 

30 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

sound, as a stimulus, from taste, from touch, 
and from smell as a stimulus. These move- 
ments are due to the effect of stimulus upon 
the organs of sense. 

Now such is the nature of the nervous 
mechanism that its extension and complex- , 
ity of growth are aided by the very means 
which nature provides in muscular move- 
ments. The movements not only include the 
two kinds mentioned, but also other kinds, 
as, for instance, the instinctive movements. 
By virtue of all these movements the cells un- 
dergo modifications of development, and 
take on a deeper complexity of structure; 
and the development of the cells in complex- 
ity is accompanied by the shooting out of 
more nerve filaments or connections, or, as 
some neurologists hold, the opening up of 
connecting fibers, which are there at birth 
but not developed. 

In the fully matured child at birth the 
centers of the impulses, which are in the 
lower part of the brain, and their main con- 
nections, have completed their development; 

31 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

but in the cerebrum only a comparatively 
few connecting nerves are developed. There 
is also connection of the muscles and a few 
sense-organs with the central seat of con- 
sciousness. This central seat of conscious- 
ness is the surface layer of the brain, or cor- 
tex. In the surface layer of the brain are 
located the centers of sight, of hearing, of 
touch, of taste, and of smell, and the activity 
of each of the centers is quite apart, Flech- 
sig holds, from the activity in any other cen- 
ter. In other words, these centers of sense 
are each of them, for the time being, so 
many separate seats of consciousness. As 
the child grows, and the nervous mechanism 
develops, these centers begin to push out 
nerve filaments toward each other, or to de- 
velop the fibers and filaments already there, 
and also to connect themselves with the lower 
regions of the brain, and with the spinal 
marrow. In the fully developed brain, aU 
the centers of sense are connected, and even- 
tuate in a unitary action of all of them. 
These centers of sense are connected with 

32 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

the lower centers, and later certain higher 
centers become developed, whose office seems 
to be to control the lower centers. The con- 
trol over the lower centers comes very slowly 
and the gradual acquirement of control over 
these is one of the immediate ends to be at- 
tained in education. 



FLECHSIG^S THEORY 



Flechsig has called those parts of the 
brain which lie between the centers of sense 
and the impulses, and into which parts of 
the brain these centers push out nerve fila- 
ments, the association centers. Association 
regions, however, would seem to be a better 
term, and less confusing. Of course, we 
must not think that all association comes 
about solely in these association regions. The 
cells in the centers, as well as their ramifying 
connections through these regions, are in- 
volved in association on its physical side. 

I have now accounted for the physical ac- 
tivity which the very processes of nature 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

compel in the early stages of the child's de- 
velopment. But as the child develops, and 
his conscious life enlarges, this tendency to- 
ward physical activity still remains, guided 
somewhat by the child's consciousness and 
will, prompted by motives which rise and 
control him. These motives are capricious 
when regarded from the point of view of the 
mature mind. But however this physical ac- 
tivity may spring out of the capricious 
motives of the child, and may result in asso- 
ciations, it is due, in fact, to an underlying 
necessity of the child's nature. Unless there 
was physical activity, sensations and impres- 
sions could not be conveyed to the brain, and 
the progressive modifications of the cells 
which compose the centers, and the shooting 
out of the filamentary nerve connections or 
the development of the nascent connections 
would not go forward. Physical activity, 
then, you will see, is necessary for the devel- 
opment, for the health, and for the imity of 
the nervous mechanism. 

Proper development of the nervous sys- 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

tern through physical activity may be se- 
cured, some one will say, by a judicious pro- 
vision of intervals of play for the child and 
youth. It may be granted that the proper 
amount of play would secure nervous unity 
to the individual. Modern researches, how- 
ever, have shown us that the physical activ- 
ity of the child, or, to speak more compre- 
hensively, the motor activities of the child, 
may be so employed as to aid largely in men- 
tal development, thereby making that men- 
tal development not only a fuller one, but 
rendering its attainment easier for the child. 

ATTENTION 

The employment of the motor activities 
enables the child to give attention the easier ; 
it aids largely in establishing associations; 
it furnishes all states of consciousness with 
a richer content. 

The reason why the child's attention can 
be held for a surprisingly long time, pro- 
vided he is so employed that the motor 

35 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

energy may be expended in movement, 
seems to be found in the conditions already 
set forth ; namely, that there are several cen- 
ters of cells not closely connected with one 
another, but with the main branches of the 
nervous mechanism. There is a constant 
discharge of motor energy into these main 
channels of the motor system, in order to 
produce movement so that the nervous mech- 
anism may be developed thereby. If, then, 
we can so employ motor activities as to make 
them a contributing part, or an accompani- 
ment in the child's lessons, we are enabled 
thereby to hold the child's attention ; but, on 
the other hand, if we do not employ the 
motor activities as an accompaniment, or 
contributing part in teaching the child, this 
energy which must be expended in move- 
ment withdraws his attention from what we 
have in hand for him. 

The impulses to motor activity seem to be 
the dominating factor in the capricious at- 
tention of the child; consequently, if we 
would hold the child's attention to any task, 

36 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

we must provide some motor accompani- 
ment. In so doing, we use up the motor 
energy, which, by its very consumption, pro- 
motes the growth and development of the 
nervous mechanism. Moreover, by this con- 
sumption of motor energy in accordance 
with the normal functioning of the nervous 
system, we not only free the child from its 
otherwise disturbing influence, but give him 
at the same time a feeling of pleasure. 

Not only is the child enabled the easier 
to give his attention to any matter in hand 
by the employment of motor activities with 
the more purely intellectual efforts required 
of him, not only is this way the shortest way 
to develop to their fullest perfection the con- 
trol centers, and to aid in the development 
and strengthening of the powers of will, but 
association and memory are largely aided by 
such motor means. 

ASSOCIATION 

Association is made stronger, we well 
know, by increasing sense experiences and 

37 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

related mental experiences. If we wish, 
then, to strengthen the associations and 
memory, we must give the child as many 
sense experiences about any object as possi- 
ble, and as many experiences in which he 
perceives some thought relation as we can 
give him. Now, the motor gives more sense 
experiences, and it enables the mind to per- 
ceive more relations, because the hands and 
the eyes are working together, and there is 
a progressive, developing concrete, contin- 
ually forming as the outcome of the con- 
joint use of hands and eyes. It will be 
evident that the presentative and representa- 
tive images are thereby enormously in- 
creased as to nimiber. The representative 
images are also clearer. It follows, then, 
that the judgments formed through discrim- 
ination and comparison are not only innu- 
merably greater in totality, but they are also 
more accurate. Consequently, the motor 
makes clearer thinkers, because the pupil 
constructs more definite pictures of projec- 
tions. And because of this reciprocal effect 

38 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 



of one power of mind upon another, all his 
thinking is more definite and exact. 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AIDED BY MOTOR 

MEANS 

No one will question the proposition that 
mental development is dependent upon the 
development of the central nervous system, 
or the brain and its attached branches. Al- 
though the cells which constitute this sys- 
tem may not be increased in number after 
the birth of the fully matured infant, the 
education of the child is always a matter of 
the development of more or less of those 
cells, and also of the establishment of more 
numerous connections between the centers. 
If, through any system of school methods 
and prescription of studies, a part of the 
potential cells of the brain remain unde- 
veloped, we have a brain of less power, a 
brain of less balance, a brain less able to 
stand the stress which is sure to come upon 
it. Besides, many difficulties will be expe- 

S9 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

rienced when the higher development of the 
mind is sought. The greater the number 
of potential cells that are appealed to, 
and the more numerous the connections we 
attempt to establish between centers, the 
easier will it be for that brain to acquire 
the various forms of thought activity which 
have resulted from the long intellectual 
development of the race. By the employ- 
ment of motor activity in teaching the 
child in our schools, not only is a greater 
number of cells called into action, thus in- 
creasing largely the pathways of intercon- 
nection and filling in the association regions, 
but the reaction in many of the centers is 
rendered more complex because additional 
elements enter thereby into the reaction. 
Clearness of conception is dependent upon 
the variety and strength of the images fused 
in the centers, during the reaction whose 
consequence is the psychic product. 

What special application now is to be 
made of this knowledge in regard to the mo- 
tor activities, and how are the demands 

40 



MOTOR ACTIVITIES IN EDUCATION 

which these motor activities make, to be met 
in the education of the child? Seek in every 
subject of study, especially in the lower 
grades, to provide motor activity, at least 
as an accompaniment of study and of recita- 
tion. If possible, however, invent means 
which shall use up the motor tendencies, and 
at the same time make them a contributing 
part in the more purely thought work re- 
quired of the child. In short, let some doing 
accompany all the child's efforts to learn. 



4.1 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 



During the past three years four sepa- 
rate investigations upon the spelling prob- 
lem have been made in the School of Peda- 
gogy, New York University. Two of these 
investigations were made by myself and the 
other two were carried forward imder my 
immediate direction. The object of these 
investigations was to see whether some new 
knowledge might not be gained that would 
render more specific guidance in the teach- 
ing of speUing. Other investigators have 
been working on this problem, but no re- 
ports of those investigations have come under 
the writer's notice except that of Miss Ade- 
laide Wyckoff on "Constitutional Bad 
Spellers" in the Pedagogical Seminary for 

December, 1893, and that made in Sioux 
5 45 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

City, the returns of which were published 
in the Iowa Normal Monthly and also in 
The School Journal for May 16, 1896. Miss 
WyckofF made tests upon an extremely 
small number of spellers, who were mature 
pupils with some power of introspection. 
Her study is valuable for its suggestive- 
ness. 

The investigation made at Sioux City, 
starting out with the proposition that spell- 
ing exercises as usually conducted appeal 
to three kinds of memory, namely, that of 
form through the eye, that of sound through 
the ear, that of muscular resistance through 
muscular effort in writing, sought to deter- 
mine which of these three kinds of memory 
is most potent in learning to spell, so that 
in teaching spelling the greater measure of 
success might be attained by making the ap- 
peal chiefly to that kind of memory. 

In the Sioux City investigation, seven 
hundred and forty-three pupils were tested 
with meaningless words of five and ten let- 
ters, as grynaphisk, halep-mirus, so using 

46 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

these words as to appeal to the eye, to the 
ear, and to the eye and ear together. 



INTERPRETATION OF INVESTIGATIONS 

In the four investigations already re- 
ferred to, between five and six thousand chil- 
dren have been tested, and although, for the 
sake of greater accuracy and the further 
verification of the data collected, full reports 
of those investigations will not be made for 
some time to come, yet some of the conclu- 
sions may be set forth for guidance in teach- 
ing spelling. In two of those studies the 
interpretation of the returns is so different 
from the conclusions reached in the Sioux 
City investigation as to warrant, in the in- 
terest of pedagogy, not only an examination 
of those conclusions, but to question in some 
degree the fundamental proposition under- 
lying that investigation. 

The auditory tests in the Sioux City in- 
vestigation were made by naming each let- 
ter of the meaningless combinations spoken 

47 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

of, and then directing pupils to write down 
the letters of the word in the order given. 

The visual tests were made by exposing 
each word, printed in large letters upon a 
card. Upon removal of the card, the word 
printed thereon was written down by the 
pupils. 

For the audo-visual test, the pupils named 
in concert each letter of the word from the 
printed card held before them, after which 
the command was given to write. 

In the tabulation of the returns the aver- 
ages resulting therefrom were as follows: 
for the auditory test 44.8^ for the visual 
test 66.2^, and for the audo-visual test 73.7^. 
It will be noticed that the lowest percentage 
of the letters recalled was by the auditory 
test; that with the visual test 21.4^ more 
letters were recalled ; and that when the audi- 
tory test and the visual were combined, 7.6^ 
more letters were recalled than by the visual 
alone, and 29^ more than by the auditory 
test. 

The conclusion drawn from these per- 

48 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

centages was stated in the following words: 
*'This seemed to point to the conclusion 
that to the average pupil the appeal in spell- 
ing should be made chiefly to the eye." 

Do not the percentages resulting from the 
three kinds of test, I wish to inquire, seem 
rather to indicate that the appeal should be 
made to that combination of powers which 
gives the highest percentage of correct re- 
sults, viz., the audo-visual? If an appeal to 
the eye and the ear together gives 7.6^ better 
returns than an appeal to the eye alone, how 
can it be reasoned that the appeal should be 
made chiefly to the eye? 

But an important factor is overlooked if 
the audo-visual test which was given to the 
seven hundred and forty-three pupils in 
Sioux City is regarded merely as a test of 
eye and ear combined. That important fac- 
tor is the motor apparatus which operates 
in speech. 



49 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 



APPEAL TO SEVEEAL SENSES 

Learning to spell is largely a matter of 
association, and, therefore, in teaching spell- 
ing the more sense avenues from which ele- 
ments may be complicated, the stronger are 
the resulting associations formed and the 
more easily will those associations rise under 
call, for the simple reason that there are 
more clues for their revival. The greater 
the number of complicated elements, the 
easier will the association rise in conscious- 
ness under recall and the easier will it be to 
hold it there for reproduction. The greater 
part of the difference of 7.6^ between the 
visual and the audo-visual tests I should 
rather be inclined to regard as representing 
a gain contributed by the motor apparatus 
of speech which was employed in the audo- 
visual test. In this audo-visual test, or, to 
name the test correctly, the visual-auditory- 
motor test, the eye, the ear, and the motor 
speech apparatus are working almost simul- 

50 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

taneously and in harmony. Can there be 
any question that under such conditions the 
proper association of letters in words is not 
stronger than by the use of only one or two 
of the senses involved? 

In one of the four investigations already 
referred to, over 2,000 children were tested 
with nonsense combinations of from three to 
ten letters in length. In the first part of the 
investigation 140 visual presentations of 
these were made. From thirty to forty pu- 
pils were tested at a time, and the tests were 
so divided as to make no fatiguing demands 
upon the pupils. Each child wrote down 
what he could recall of the 140 printed cards 
held up before him for a given length of 
time. The pupils were requested not to 
move their hps when looking at the combina- 
tions ; and although we impressed upon them 
as strongly as we could that they must not 
use their lips, we found that though they 
started out with a very commendable effort 
not to do this, they would soon lapse into the 
use of their lips. When another strong ap- 

51 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

peal not to use the lips was made, many 
cases came mider our observation of children 
who, while inhibiting the use of their lips, 
were moving their hands or fingers as if tell- 
ing off the letters silently. After repeated 
observation by those who assisted in making 
the tests, the conclusion was reached that at 
least 90^ of all the children tested lapsed 
into aiding themselves by using their lips — 
unless strongly appealed to when each com- 
bination was held up. This lapsing, more- 
over, occurred in schools where the spelling 
had been taught almost wholly by appealing 
to the eye. So strong a tendency as this to 
use a motor accompaniment is significant in 
suggesting that the motor speech apparatus 
be turned to use in learning to spell, not that 
it be repressed, thus making, I believe, addi- 
tional difficulties not only for the pupil but 
also for the teacher. 

ORAL SPELLING 

Spelling is a very arbitrary matter, and 
yields to but slight extent to the logical and 

5S 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

causal helps which are employed in teaching 
other subjects. Motor elements are impor- 
tant elements in association, and with so arbi- 
trary a subject as English spelling every aid 
in strengthening the association should be 
employed. From the experiments made and 
the verification of the conclusions in actual 
school application, I am convinced that the 
motor apparatus used in speech should be 
employed to a large extent in teaching spell- 
ing. All preparation of words to be written 
should be oral preparation, and very careful 
preparation at that, particularly in the sec- 
ond, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth school 
years. Writing should be the final test, but 
only after careful preparation orally. And 
in that preparation the letters should be 
grouped into syllables and the syllables pro- 
nounced according to the method of a gen- 
eration or two ago. The poor results now 
so common in spelling would thereby be 
greatly bettered. In the end, time would be 
gained, and the pupil rendered better able 
to help himself. The method of leading the 

53 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

pupil to grasp the word as a whole through 
the eye has made confused spellers of large 
numbers of children. With some, however, 
it has produced excellent results. 

The tests show that in the appeal to the 
eye many children seized the first and the 
last letters of the word, but left out some of 
the middle letters or mixed these. 

It would seem, then, that the naming of 
the three, four, or five letters, as the case 
may be, that constitute a syllable, and then 
attaching a name to these grouped letters, 
thus binding them into a small unity, would 
aid the pupil to a remarkable degree. The 
putting of these small unities together into 
the larger word unity, gives the pupil a syn- 
thetic power to this end and makes his prog- 
ress more rapid and easy on the long road 
he must traverse in learning to spell. 

But this is a return to an old method, it 
will be remarked. It is taking what was 
good from an old method and using it as a 
part of a broader and better method than is 
now generally employed in our schools. 

54 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

Written spelling is not to be neglected, but 
it is to come last, after careful oral prep- 
aration. 



THE METHOD OF WRITTEN SPELLING 
QUESTIONED 

For the last two decades or more this 
method has been almost wholly repudiated 
as an aid in learning to spell. The false 
notion that the eye is the avenue to which to 
appeal in teaching spelling began to obtain 
at that time a very fom hold upon the minds 
of teachers. Institute lecturers made strong 
efforts to inculcate this idea and their efforts 
met with large success. As much greater 
power was imputed to the eye in this regard 
than it actually has, the time devoted to 
learning to spell naturally became shortened, 
and the spelling lesson passed from the place 
of prominence in the program of work to 
a place of subordinate importance, and quite 
generally the spelling lesson was merely the 
writing of words selected from the reading 

55 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

lessons, with repeated drill in writing upon 
words incorrectly spelled. 

The larger knowledge which has resulted 
from the great development of psycholog- 
ical study of recent years leads us to see that 
the teachers of a generation and a half ago 
were not wholly wrong after all in their 
teaching of spelling. They were right as 
far as they went, but they did not go far 
enough. Those who repudiated the old 
method, and made the appeal almost whollj'' 
to the eye, were right in holding that for 
most pupils the eye is a stronger sense 
avenue of appeal than the ear when only 
these two are considered. But the motor 
speech apparatus was not regarded as a 
factor in the matter. 

It is true that in testing any hundred pu- 
pils according to the methods which are sup- 
posed to determine whether they are eye- 
minded or ear-minded, we shall find a large 
percentage of the hundred eye-minded and 
only a small percentage markedly ear- 
minded. But it will also be found that a 

56 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

very large percentage will give good re- 
turns to the tests for determining eye- 
mindedness and also to the tests for deter- 
mining ear-mindedness, with the returns 
usually in favor of the test for eye-minded- 
ness. In every grade of pupils, it must be 
remembered, such diiFerences will be found. 
The method in teaching spelling should 
therefore be broad enough to appeal fully 
to these differing aptitudes in different pu- 
pils and also broad enough to appeal to those 
pupils in which these aptitudes are more 
nearly balanced. The method already sug- 
gested is broad enough to make this varied 
appeal. 

In the article giving account of the Sioux 
City investigation the opinion was also ad- 
vanced that accurate observation should have 
some bearing upon correct spelling. Tests 
were also made in the Sioux City investiga- 
tion upon 149 good spellers and 149 poor 
spellers to see which were the best observers 
when ten different articles were exposed at 
the same time to each pupil and the pupils 

57 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

afterward asked to write the names of the 
objects. Because it was found that the good 
spellers were the best observers, it can not 
be inferred from such a test that poor spell- 
ing "is largely due to inability to picture the 
word correctly and promptly in the mind's 
eye." Good spellers are good observers as a 
rule because they possess better all-round 
mental capacity than poor spellers. Our 
tests showed us that the poor spellers in their 
power to learn to spell new words were from 
a year to a year and a half behind the good 
spellers, taking, of course, children of the 
same age. Training the power of observa- 
tion through nature study has been recom- 
mended as aiding the pupil in learning to 
spell. Such a recommendation has no war- 
rantable foundation, and its employment 
would prove of little if any specific value in 
aiding the pupil to spell; nor will efforts 
made to develop the so-called eye-minded- 
ness avail much. 

Spelling is largely a matter of association, 
and the eye, the ear, and the motor must be 

58 



THE SPELLING QUESTION 

appealed to so as to produce the strongest 
complication of sensory elements. Care then 
in the right kind of oral preparation, with 
considerable oral test before writing, train- 
ing pupils to build up words by using the 
small unities into which words can be divided, 
is a method of teaching spelling productive 
of the best all-round results. 



59 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 



Daily humanity renews itself. Of all the 
miracles that have been witnessed or re- 
corded, the most marvelous is that which we 
continually see in the renewal of life. There 
is nothing in the world so wonderful as a 
little babe. Mysterious comer, typifjdng 
the immortality of life! But for its advent 
the springs of all that is best in man's heart 
would dry up as a leaf in autumn ; but for its 
advent society would become selfish, sordid, 
and base. There is always a wonderful rich- 
ness and depth in all Bible truths, and this 
is more and more revealed as society evolves 
toward finer organization. The Sacred 
Word saith "A little child shall lead them." 
The little child has steadily led man to 
higher things and the little child still leads 

6S 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

man to-day. It is the child who has been the 
wonder-worker in the ascent of man. 

The purpose hmnanity conceives for it- 
self may be aptly expressed in the aphorism, 
"All for the child, because all is in the child." 
Social, ethical, spiritual progress — all is in 
the child. We appreciate this in these days 
as has never been appreciated in the past; 
and therefore we have begun studying the 
child that we may learn how best to aid his 
highest development. We have turned to 
this study that we may do the utmost for 
each particular child, let his heritage be what 
it may. 

What better proof of the strength of this 
new tendency could there be than the rapid 
growth in the new field of inquiry called 
Child Study? This study is revealing much 
to its votaries, and it is changing our whole 
attitude toward the little ones entrusted to 
our care. Never before were we so patient 
of their blunders as in these first years 
of the twentieth century; never before 
have we been so ready to admit that the 

64 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

blunders of children in their first approach 
of knowledge are not such grave matters 
after all, since even grown-up persons 
when they attempt to learn that which 
is new and strange make equally laugh- 
able mistakes and blunders. We have at 
length come to recognize that we must put 
ourselves on the child's plane; that we 
must follow him as he reveals himself to us ; 
and that we can not lead him according to 
our preconceived ideas. Only through wise- 
ly directed and patient effort can he be 
brought to think in accordance with our 
thinking. 

In the past, we have tried to teach the 
child in our schools so that at the end of each 
year we should get an all around develop- 
ment so far as the child had traversed the 
field of knowledge. We acted as though the 
child's advance in knowledge could be rep- 
resented by a series of circles, one within an- 
other and all having the same center, the 
smallest circle representing what the child 
ought to know at the end of his first year, 

65 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

the next larger circle what he should know 
at the end of his second year, and so on. 
We had the same measure for each child; 
and the purpose of the teacher was to roimd 
out each child to the circumference of the 
circle which bounded his year. 

During the recent years no other fact has 
forced itself upon the attention of teachers 
to such a degree as the fact of the individual 
mental differences of children of the same 
age. In the first place, there are many va- 
ried types of mind, and each one exerts it- 
self most strongly along some line deter- 
mined not by education, but by the inherent 
nature of the mind itself. In the second 
place, individual differences result, from the 
fact that the time when the child's mind be- 
gins to function in a particular direction dif- 
fers widely with different children. These 
differences are still more emphasized by the 
fact that when the child's mind begins to 
function in any direction, that is, when he 
begins to rapidly acquire some kind of 
knowledge and his interest in this is intense, 

66 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

suddenly we find this interest gone and 
further acquirement in this particular di- 
rection is made with great difficulty and with 
most unsatisfactory results. In such cases 
it will often be found that the child's 
self -activity has begun to function in some 
other direction. This apparent capricious- 
ness of the functioning of the child's mind 
is a matter which must always be taken into 
account and provided for in our eiForts to 
educate him. In view of the inherent 
natural differences in minds, in view of the 
inconstant functioning of the child's self- 
activity of mind, it is not surprising that we 
should get mistakes and failures from him. 
Nor should we unduly distress ourselves 
over these nor misinterpret them. 

To understand a child's mistakes we must 
know the individual child, something of his 
past history and of the conditions under 
which he works, and then we shall be able 
to explain the incongruous products of his 
thinking. We do not realize sufficiently in 
our educational demands with what the child 

67 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

is beset. We do not appreciate the condi- 
tions of his situation. He is in the midst of 
innumerable objects, manifestations of com- 
plex and varied phenomena, events occur- 
ring in succession and then simultaneously; 
and he has to seek an explanation of all these 
varied things. 

Suppose, for instance, there were a race 
of human beings above us of wider knowl- 
edge, of broader experience, of keener per- 
ception, of greater insight into causes and 
effects and their subtile connections, of more 
remarkable power in making inferences and 
inductions than ourselves — a race express- 
ing its observations, inferences, and 
thoughts, and communicating with each 
other, by means of a language much more 
intricate and complex than any language of 
which we have knowledge. Suppose, fur- 
ther, that at thirty years of age we should 
enter into this new environment and come 
under the tutelage of this race. Every one 
must concede after a moment's thought that 
our efforts to understand and master the 

63 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

new surroundings would result in some suc- 
cesses and in a production of much rich and 
varied caricature. But, mind you, it would 
not be caricature to us; we should regard it 
all in quite a serious light. How frag- 
mentary and disjointed would our thinking 
appear to the superior race! What a lack 
of unity would show itself! How supreme- 
ly confident we should be of our conclusions, 
because we thought we saw all that was to 
be noted! What false and irrelevant associ- 
ations would somehow form themselves in 
our minds! What misunderstanding and 
misuse there would be ! 

The illustration with reference to that su- 
perior race under whose tutelage I have 
asked you to imagine yourselves is defective, 
I fear, in one particular. Would a race with 
such keen perception of relations, with such 
insight into causes and effects, and with 
such powers of observations and induction 
as I have imputed to them, seek to drag us 
up at once to the level of their knowledge 
and thinking; or would they come down to 

69 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

us, study and master our limitations, and 
lead us up according to the natural way of 
the development of our minds? Would they 
judge all our efforts by their philosophical 
standards? Or would they judge our ef- 
forts and measure our progress compara- 
tively and always from our mental condi^ 
tion and from our equipment ? 

There can be but one answer to these ques- 
tions. We must come down to the child, 
take him by the hand, and lead him up the 
tortuous and uneven path of knowledge, 
willing to loiter with him here and there in 
nooks and open, even to wait for him. We 
must not stand on the heights of knowledge 
and thought, beckoning and calling to him 
to come straight up to us. It is necessary 
that we should cast aside our preconceived 
ideas as to how the child should learn, and 
be guided by the characteristics of the child's 
thinking. An acquaintance with these char- 
acteristics will enable us to understand the 
stages through which his thinking must pass, 
and will enable us to understand the various 

70 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

and dissimilar steps which children take in 
coming at last to the ability to use the forms 
of thought of mature people. 

The incompleteness or fragmentary na- 
ture of the child's processes of thought may 
be clearly seen in the drawings which he 
spontaneously makes. They are simply dia- 
grams composed of certain synthetic ele- 
ments which the child uses to express his 
crude thinking, to body it forth. These syn- 
thetic elements are used over and over again 
by the child to such an extent as to lead us 
to regard them in the nature of symbols. 
One of the most striking of these synthetic 
elements or symbols is the representation 
of the human face. Young children, with 
scarcely an exception, draw ovals or circles 
for a face and plant two dots in it for eyes. 
Usually a straight vertical line represents 
the nose, and next after the nose the mouth 
appears. This consists first of one or two 
straight marks very long, cut later oval, in- 
dicating that a crude idea of the mouth as 
an aperture is becoming more prominent in 

71 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

the child's mind. Sometimes nose and 
mouth are represented together by two or 
three round lines. Ears and hair are a later 
addition. All this indicates the way in which 
the child's ideas are built up by Uttle accre- 
tions, and how slow in growth are some of 
his processes of thinking. Later on hats are 
added, and even girls draw the conventional 
head covering worn by men and boys. The 
reason for this is not far to seek. There 
are two or three types of men's hats which 
are not departed from in the main; but with 
ladies, who will attempt to describe the vari- 
eties of the constant change? 

All who have watched the evolution of the 
child's drawings know that legs appear be- 
fore the body and always with the feet 
turned out. At the next stage, arms branch 
out from the legs. Later we find an oval 
for the body and the legs and arms are at- 
tached to this. Then buttons are added. 
Fingers are placed upon the hands. Ears 
and hair begin to appear. These are sub- 
stantially the synthetic elements or symbols 

72 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

by which the young child represents the hu- 
man form. 

Houses always have roofs and many of 
them are made with the two ends facing the 
observer, showing that children at that pe- 
riod have no idea of perspective. Nearly 
all houses have a chimney, indicating the 
child's interest in motor images and his ap- 
preciation of them. Doors and windows ap- 
pear almost from the start. All the chil- 
dren's houses are transparent, that is, the 
interior can be seen from the outside. The 
child does not consider that the furniture 
can not be seen through the side of the 
house. 

These representations of various objects 
embody only fundamental characteristics or 
attributes. Children, then, use these syn- 
thetic elements in much the same way that 
they use language to express their crude 
conception of ideas. All who have observed 
the child's expression of his thought in his 
spontaneous drawings must conclude that 
the child's thinking is fragmentary, or inco- 

73 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

herent. We find an utter disregard of the 
relation of objects in space and time, as well 
as of the succession of events in time. We 
also find much unrelated matter brought in. 
The child's thinking is successive rather 
than progressive, or related. He forms in- 
numerable judgments, but these are isolated, 
unrelated one to the other. This results from 
the fact of the great activity of sense-per- 
ception and from the slight organization of 
mental activities. His products, each a 
simple observation or inference, absorb his 
attention, which flits fitfully from one ob- 
ject to another. All these objects are rec- 
ognized by the child and known to him not 
by the combination of many qualities by 
which we know the objects, but one or two 
main characteristics, as his drawings show; 
and even these characteristics are not per- 
ceived with much definiteness. The charac- 
teristic is usually that which is most prom- 
inent or striking. It may not be an essen- 
tial characteristic, and if there is attributed 
any relation as cause and effect, it is quite 

74. 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

likely to be a false one. Professor Krohn's 
little boy came to him one day and wanted 
his shoes polished so that when he walked 
they would squeak. The gloss was the stri- 
king characteristic to the eye and the squeak- 
ing sound the striking characteristic to the 
ear, of new shoes. When considered in the 
light of his experience the child's conclusion 
was consistent. 

I once heard a boy of six ask a very sensi- 
ble question about the evil spirit. It was 
Sunday afternoon and the little fellow stood 
in reverie looking out of the window. A 
thought was shaping itself into expression, 
for shortly he turned about and asked very 
earnestly, "If the devil goes about like a 
roaring lion, why can't we see him?" That 
morning he had heard in church the fifth 
chapter of First Peter read, where the bold 
imagery is used. Now of all the ideas in this 
passage the boy was able to apprehend only 
three, and all of these more or less vaguely. 
He had seen pictures of a lion and had been 
told some things about this interesting ani- 

75 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

mal. He had some dim idea about "roar- 
ing." His third dim, crude idea was that of 
"going about." Now, "going about" meant 
to this boy being out of doors, running 
around the house, or making short excur- 
sions into the neighboring field. His ques- 
tion, then, was perfectly consistent, per- 
fectly logical, when we take into account 
what he had with which to think. 

In the past, and to a large extent to-day, 
educational practise has dwelt far too much 
upon trying to give the child as complete 
a notion as possible when any new object 
was taken up ; it had dwelt far too much upon 
bringing out all the qualities or character- 
istics and all of their relations. And in 
doing this, there has been not only much 
waste of effort on the part of the teacher, 
but also much annoyance to the pupil. 
Teacher and pupil have worked at cross pur- 
poses because it was not seen that the child 
demands variety, many objects of thought, 
from each of which he gains one or two 
broad impressions. Do not hold the child 

76 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

down too closely to qualities. He needs 
many things, and we must remember that he 
gets only a little from each particular thing. 
The aim of the past has been to lead him to 
get many qualities out of a few objects. It 
was thought that the object must be ob- 
served until all the qualities that could be 
found in it were exhausted. We see to-day 
very clearly the defects in the once widely 
used system of object-lessons. Bother him 
very little with qualities that have no inter- 
est for him. But stop at every point where 
he asks a question and answer him. This 
asking of questions is the child's natural way 
of helping himself to apperceive. By means 
of his questions he gains the necessary in- 
termediate ideas which enable him to under- 
stand the new, or, in pedagogical parlance, 
the unknown. 

At this period of his development he 
groups together these vague impressions and 
unifies them. He is creating just as we cre- 
ate, and what the product will be depends 

upon what he has to throw together in this 
•7 'y»7 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

act of creation. His images are indistinct 
as yet ; his ideas of time are unformed ; every- 
thing is in the present with him. And from 
this grouping, relating and creating, result 
the fanciful creations of the child. Many 
a young parent has treasured up these stri- 
king sayings, thinking them indications of 
genius. They are, however, but accidents; 
some of them are poetic; and some of them 
seem to indicate extraordinary insight, as 
interpreted by us. 

When we enter the child*s mental world, 
however, we see that these sayings are only 
ordinary products of his mode of thinking. 
Thus a little boy, seeing a flash of lightning 
for the first time, remarked, "See the sky 
wink." A grown person and a little girl of 
four years were sitting out-of-doors one 
evening and the little girl, happening to see 
the moon come out from behind a cloud, 
cried, "See, see, the moon has waked up!" 
The next evening was cloudy, and as the 
two were standing by the window the grown 
person said, "Where is the moon to-night, 

78 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

dear?" "Oh," she replied, "it's asleep and 
hasn't waked up yet." 

Walter, a four-year-old, asked Anna, a 
six-year-old, how the stars and moon came 
into the sky at night. Anna answered, "Oh, 
those are holes in the sky and the light from 
heaven shines through." The next morning 
it was raining. Walter, the four-year-old, 
came up to Anna and said, "Oh, dear, there 
must have been a flood in heaven last night, 
'cause the water is coming through the holes 
where the stars were." These sayings are 
very beautiful to us, but to the children they 
were not products of beauty. Nor are they 
indications of coming genius. Children 
have been saying such things in all ages 
since the world began. 

The child, I have said, demands quantity. 
It is further true that he cares little for ex- 
pression in itself; he holds it subordinate to 
movement and use. I knew a little girl with 
a fine ear for tones and a fine sense of time, 
with marked powers, it proved in later years, 
for language. When seven and a half years 

79 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

old she could read a page from Washington 
Irving, which she had never seen before, sur- 
prisingly well. Yet one day I heard this 
little girl singing from the Gloria, "As it 
was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without men,'* Her aunt remarked 
at the time that she hoped this would not be 
prophetic. One clause from the Lord's 
Prayer she rendered, "Give us this day our 
daily breath/^ Such verbal accidents oc- 
cur in every household where there are chil- 
dren, and afford a perennial spring of 
humor. 

Children learn as we do by trying and 
making mistakes. The mistakes of adults 
are less frequent because they have become 
cautious. If weems, nurhags, and cranocks 
were to come up in conversation, and the 
hearers should catch just the faintest and 
vaguest idea thereof, how many of those 
adult hearers would venture to use any of 
these words? And yet they are all in the 
dictionary. To illustrate further: I once 
knew an illiterate but most excellent and 

80 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

practical farmer. The crops he produced 
were the finest and his work was always well 
up to the standard. He had charge of a 
farm on a wealthy gentleman's estate. This 
gentleman had ordered a car-load of super- 
phosphate for the spring planting. It had 
been delayed and news of its arrival came 
in the evening. Early next morning the 
farmer met his men and said, "Come, men, 

we've got to move lively to-day. Mr. 

wants all that superhorsefoot got into the 
ground by night." This man was interested 
in things, in their use, in movement. And 
yet his mistake was a case of accidental asso- 
ciation exactly parallel to the many instances 
which every child fiunishes. This farm lay 
by a large body of salt water. Before the 
days of patent fertilizers, it was the custom 
to gather at the proper time large quantities 
of horsefeet, or kingscrabs, as they were 
sometimes called, and use these to fertilize 
the land. Hence this new fertilizer — super- 
horsefoot. 

Here is another case of accidental associ- 

81 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

ation, and that of such a nature — so obdu- 
rate — that we do not even try to break it up, 
but leave the matter to straighten itself out : 
A sister said to a child of three, "Take your 
spoon in your right hand." He asked, "Is 
this my wrong hand?" "No, that is your 
left hand." He changed the spoon, and 
said: "If this is my right hand, that is my 
wrong hand," and his sister could not make 
him understand why, if one hand was the 
right, the other wasn't the wrong hand. 
Fortunately this sister gave up the matter, 
but had such a case arisen in school, the 
teacher, with no knowledge of the logic of 
the child's thinking, would have felt it her 
duty to eradicate this idea. She would have 
made a difficulty for herself, where she 
should have done nothing, and one of those 
struggles so common to the schoolroom 
would have followed. 

Association and that of a mechanical kind 
is very active in the early periods of the 
child's conscious life. The most incongru- 
ous things often link themselves together, 

82 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

not at all, as one might suppose, from con- 
tiguity in space or time. A word, a symbol, 
a phrase, arising representatively in the 
child's mind, will link itself with no Httle 
tenacity to some other phrase or expression 
from the fact that the word or expression 
so linked has originally been the accompani- 
ment of some strong visual or other sensory 
impression. Often such false and accidental 
associations arise from pictures and papers 
and magazines. Even children who have 
made some headway in learning to read are 
frequently known to form them. An illus- 
tration of this came to my notice recently 
in the prayer of a httle girl. "O Lord," she 
prayed, "make me pure, make me as abso- 
lutely pure as Royal Baking Powder." 

Let us see how the logic of children mani- 
fests itself in their efforts to imderstand and 
learn the why of things. To seek the causes 
of things has been a characteristic of human 
nature from the beginning of time. But 
adults have learned through long experience 
that there are many inexpUcable things past 

88 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

finding out, and they give over attempts at 
their solution. The children have not this 
experience behind them. Their wonder 
grows out of their inability to appreciate 
causal relations, and so they wonder why 
this is so and why that is so. Out of this 
wonder spring their questions, and these 
they ply without stint. The most perplex- 
ing question I ever heard a child ask was, 
"Where does the fire go when it goes out?'* 
A small boy asked after he had returned 
home from his first lesson in the gymnasium, 
"When I hang by my feet on the horizontal 
bar, the blood rushes to my head. Now 
when I stand on my feet why doesn't it all 
rush to my feet and stay there?" 

Much that is surprising to children 
springs out of their inability to discern the 
cause when certain effects are strikingly ap- 
parent. Here are instances of this: George 
had on new stockings. At night, when his 
mother took them off, his feet were colored. 
He said in surprise, "O mamma! these ain't 
the feet I had this morning." A gentleman 

84 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

once told me of a little boy who, upon going 
into the kitchen one day, saw for the first 
time a colored baby. He came back to his 
mother and said, "O manmia! there is a lit- 
tle baby in the kitchen with black hands and 
face." "Yes," the mother said, "that baby 
has a black body ; it is a colored baby." "Oh, 
no, mamma, not mider its white dress." 
"Yes, my dear, its whole body is black." 
"How did it come so?" "God made it so." 
The boy reflected a moment and then said, 
"Well, He must have laughed at it when He 
got through." 

When, however, the child learns that a 
certain cause will produce a certain effect, he 
has no scruples about using it. "Why don't 
you come to play with me?" said one child 
to another. "Won't your mother let you?" 
"No," said the second child. "Why don't 
you cry and kick? Then she'll let you." 
"Do you do that?" the second child immedi- 
ately asked. "Yes," replied the first, "and 
mother says, 'Well, go along then.' " 

The child at his entrance to school has 

85 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

comparatively few lines of association; he 
has little power of inhibition; his impulses, 
when they rise, dominate his whole mind, 
hence the peculiar outbreaks and persistent 
demands of the child. A recognition of 
these conditions will explain the child's un- 
reasonableness. One winter morning a 
mother had put outside the window a mug 
of water in order that, after freezing, she 
might let her little daughter break the ice 
and thus show her one of the mysteries of 
nature. The little girl was highly delighted 
with this bedroom lesson, and the purpose 
of the mother was achieved, as this example 
of nature's phenomena made a strong im- 
pression upon the mind of her little 
daughter. Next morning the mother was 
awakened very early by hearing her child 
call to her in a suppressed voice, "Mamma, 
mamma, won't you put the mug of water 
out to freeze?" "Hush, Margaret, and go 
to sleep," answered the mother. "Mamma, 
do please put out the mug of water." "Mar- 
garet," replied the mother, somewhat agi- 

86 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

tated, "you will wake your papa. If you 
ask me that again I will get up and spank 
you." Margaret tried to obey, but only a 
few minutes had passed when she said, 
"Mamma, when you get up to spank me, 
won't you please put the mug of water out 
to freeze." 

This reveals very clearly the fact that the 
child's power to repress ideas, desires, and 
impulses that rise in its mind is very weak. 
Control over ideas and inhibition of im- 
pulses are slowly acquired, and logical con- 
sistency in thought and in conduct are prod- 
ucts that come tardily, and only after long 
and careful training. 

Our figurative way of speaking and our 
use of metaphorical language deceive the 
child and make many difficulties for him. 
In the most widely used grammar published 
in this country this line from Byron is found 
as a simple sentence for analysis : "From 
peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
leaps the live thunder." A boy fourteen 
and a half years old came to me one even- 
Si 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

ing to get help upon this sentence. He had 
been required to diagram it for next day's 
lesson. Now, this boy had seen mountains, 
had played upon rocky crags, but had never 
heard that term used. The time I spent 
with him was consumed in trying to lead him 
to understand the thought. He could get 
hold of the idea "crags," but "rattling 
crags" he could not clear up to his satisfac- 
tion. The same was true of "live thunder," 
Nor could he see how thunder could "leap." 
I spent nearly an hour with him. The time 
I spent was misused, wrongly used. Yet 
the boy was given the sentence for home 
work, and must have it next day or be kept 
in. Did the maker of the text-book or the 
task-maker using it know much of the logic 
of children? That teacher was to my mind 
an object for the deepest pedagogical 
pity. 

Children form ethical ideas and concep- 
tions very slowly. One teacher has found 
that young children judge actions by their 
results, while older children look at the mo- 

88 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

tives which prompt them; that threats and 
forced promises do not impress children; 
that if a young child disobeys a command 
and no bad results follow, he does not see 
that he has done wrong. This indicates very 
clearly the course to be pursued in this par- 
ticular with many young children. A little 
girl for some bad behavior had been put in 
a chair to sit still. After a time the mother 
spoke to the child about her naughty be- 
havior and said that if she would ask God 
perhaps He would take away her naughty 
feelings. The child answered somewhat fer- 
vidly, "I don't want God to take away my 
naughty feelings. I want to keep my 
naughty feelings." Great patience is nec- 
essary in aiding the child to form ethical 
ideas. Not only must there be great pa- 
tience, but the effort must be long continued. 
And our schools are doing defective work; 
they are not rendering the service they 
should, because there is so little appreciation 
on the part of teachers of how moral ideas 
should be built up in the child's mind, and of 

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THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

the great influence of such ideas upon the 
will. 

Nor must we overlook the fact that all 
children make generahzations. Their gen- 
eralizations are, as a rule, too wide; they 
overshoot the mark. We must, however, 
remember that they are often logical and 
consistent when viewed in the light of the 
ideas with which the children have to 
work. 

The thinking of children shows us that 
the warp and woof of the child's mental de- 
velopment are judgments growing out of 
his experience. In order to correct and 
amend these judgments, to multiply them, 
we must enlarge his experience. With his 
undeveloped judgment he is overconfident. 
Only by his overconfidence, however, or his 
confident assurance, is he enabled to gain 
experience to correct his own judgments. 
Our aim should be to give him full oppor- 
tunity to make these tests and to be patient 
with his mistakes, remembering that we are 
not to look at these, but at the end we are 

90 



THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

reaching, or rather enabling the child to 
reach. 

It is said that the child, in reaching the 
maturity of his powers, passes through all 
the stages through which the race has passed 
in its development. The analogy is impres- 
sive and instructive. In the childhood of 
the race, men thought by means of vague 
images; they looked only at the striking or 
obtrusive characteristics of things and phe- 
nomena ; they had little power to see the true 
relation of causes and effects; their logic 
was the logic of our children. 

All progress in thinking and in knowl- 
edge has been attained because the human 
race has been able to see below the external 
characteristics other characteristics more cau- 
sal, and below these others still more causal. 
In other words, we have gone from visible 
eiFect to more and more ultimate causes. 
To-day we can not see the ultimate causes 
as will those who are to come a century after 
us. Race thinking, then, is a slow growth, 
and ever progresses toward insight into 

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THE LOGIC OF CHILDREN 

deeper relations, but it acts upon obtrusive 
relations first. In support of this, think of 
the long array of exploded theories that we 
might caU up from history. Hippocrates 
had a doctrine that the veins contained ether 
and that this fed the heart. He also thought 
that the temperament of a person originated 
through the mixing of four humors — blood, 
choler, phlegm, and melancholy. Aristotle, 
nearly a century after Hippocrates, de- 
scribed the brain as the coldest and most 
bloodless organ of the body, of the nature 
of water and earth whose office was to tem- 
per the great heat from the heart, just as the 
cooler regions of the atmosphere condense 
the vapors rising from the ground. 

Our knowledge, then, and our forms of 
thinking are a heritage out of the growth of 
the past. The child enters into this heritage 
of the ages, little by little, and comes at last 
to the extent of his native endowments, to 
think not through fanciful associations, but 
in accordance with causal relations, and with 
appreciation of the unity of knowledge. 

92 

a) 



AUG 17 1904 



